On 3 August 2015 Rohith Vemula and four other Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) activists at the University of Hyderabad dared to question the death penalty that was awarded to Yakub Memon, a convict in 1993 Mumbai (Bombay) bombings in which 257 people were killed. He also condemned the ABVP attack on the screening of the documentary ‘Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai’ in Delhi University. Rohit’s mistake was that he wanted to be a free thinker.
He thought that the death penalty for Yakub Memon was unjustified. But rather ironically, in free India, he did not have the freedom to hold that view. There are several in India who think like him. But for Rohit, he dared to be part of a group who decided to question the decison and voice their protest.
Do we live in a country where we cannot question anyone or anything. Anyone who dares to think beyond the line of official thought is now being labelled and castigated. Rohit was one among them who decided that he had to question offical belief.
Were Yakub Memon, or for that matter Afzal Guru actually terrorists. The courts in their wisdom have ruled so. For us to question the wisdom of the courts may not be proper but to be able to debate it, is what lies at the essense of our freedom. That is what Rohit believed in and attempted to practice. And that is where is crossed the line set for us by the manufacturered spirit of nationalism. If Rohit Vemula is guilty on the count of nationalism how about those who glorify Nathuram Godse, for wasn’t it the same courts that convicted him. I wonder!